A Principles-Based Understanding to Overcome Suffering and Get Back Your Original Nice Feeling
The purpose of life is simply to enjoy and extend a nice feeling (love).
Life gave us this nice feeling as it made us.
Actually, this is what we are - a nice feeling (love).
That is why the sages throughout time have always said, "Look within", when directing us out of our suffering.
If this is the case, why don't we experience this nice feeling but for fleeting moments, like when we are drifting off to sleep, or just waking up before we start thinking and remembering, or when we are "in the zone"? Because we have not realized that we, ourselves, made up any and all experiences other than this nice feeling (love) by misusing the very same "tools" - mind, thought, and consciousness, that life gave us for enjoying and extending this simple, nice feeling (love).
How and why would we do this? Simply because we are not aware that we are doing this.
We are doing this completely unconsciously.
And there is no way to stop doing something hurtful until we are aware that we are doing it.
We mistakenly imagine that we are being hurt by what is being done to us, not by what we are doing.
Thus, we imagine that the solution to our suffering must be in what we do, or stop doing.
We mistakenly think that this nice feeling (love) can only be experienced by doing the "right" thing, stopping doing the "wrong" thing or by getting others to stop doing the "wrong" thing and doing the "right" thing.
But "doing" was given to us at the same time as the nice feeling was (at our creation) as a means of extending this nice feeling, not as a way of making it.
We did not create it.
It was created with us, for us, in us, as us at the moment of our creation with the means of experiencing it (mind, thought, and consciousness) as well as the means of extending it (doing).
When we look to "doing" and "not doing" to try to make the nice feeling happen, we will fail, but only all the time, because this is, as the famous line says, "looking for love in all the wrong places.
" We invented, made up, imagined the bad feelings unwittingly, much as we make up our dreams.
They are no more real than are our dreams, even though they feel as real as do our dreams, but only until we awake.
Not realizing that we made up these bad feelings ourselves, we are victims of the illusion that the bad feelings came from what happened or failed to happen "out there" - from what was done to me or not done for me; or from what I did, or failed to do.
In reality, there is nothing that happens, has ever happened, or ever will happen that can rob us of our peace of mind or our ability to love, of that nice feeling.
Why, because that nice feeling (love) is what we are, is our nature, is the ground of our being.
It is only by misusing the divine gifts that life gave us - mind, thought, and consciousness that we make up misery, and hurt, and fear, and sadness, and all the bad feelings that we invented and made up, but which will never be real.
The tragic irony is that life gave us these tools as a means of fulfilling our purpose - to enjoy and extend this nice feeling (love).
I write this brief piece, not to awake, as this may take a while, but to help us (myself included) realize that we but dream, and that everything that we experience short of joy and love - that nice feeling, comes from what we make up in our minds, rather than from what was given to us in our minds at the time of our creation.
When we awake we will never suffer a bad feeling again.
We will simply receive and extend the timeless, abiding joy of being, as we were created, and as is our true nature.
In the mean time, to realize that we are the source of our bad feelings, and that the bad feelings only exist in our dream, and not in reality, changes our reaction and our relationship to our bad feelings.
Realizing that they are not coming from "out there", but from "in here" and that we are "making them up" no matter how real they feel, allows us to experience our deepest suffering with a grain of salt.
And when we can take our deepest suffering with a grain of salt, we are no longer slaves of our suffering.
Taking our suffering seriously only adds to our suffering.
Being able to take our suffering lightly by understanding we are making it up by the misuse of mind, thought, and consciousness, allows our suffering to pass, easily, effortlessly, and even instantly when our understanding is deep enough.
May you be touched by something in this writing, no matter how small, so that you suffer less, and even see the real possibility of the end of suffering.
May you see the potential to enjoy peace of mind, and the ability to love - that nice feeling, no matter what is happening, or not happening, no matter what is being done to you, or not being done for you, no matter what you are doing, or failing to do, no matter what happened to you or ever will happen.
May you at least catch a fleeting glimpse that you need do nothing to find this nice feeling, that this nice feeling is who and what you are from the beginning, and always will be.
And may your "doing" be an extension of that nice feeling that was given to you from the beginning, which is you, rather than an innocent, misguided attempt to find that nice feeling through "doing", which will always fail.
We are blessed!
Life gave us this nice feeling as it made us.
Actually, this is what we are - a nice feeling (love).
That is why the sages throughout time have always said, "Look within", when directing us out of our suffering.
If this is the case, why don't we experience this nice feeling but for fleeting moments, like when we are drifting off to sleep, or just waking up before we start thinking and remembering, or when we are "in the zone"? Because we have not realized that we, ourselves, made up any and all experiences other than this nice feeling (love) by misusing the very same "tools" - mind, thought, and consciousness, that life gave us for enjoying and extending this simple, nice feeling (love).
How and why would we do this? Simply because we are not aware that we are doing this.
We are doing this completely unconsciously.
And there is no way to stop doing something hurtful until we are aware that we are doing it.
We mistakenly imagine that we are being hurt by what is being done to us, not by what we are doing.
Thus, we imagine that the solution to our suffering must be in what we do, or stop doing.
We mistakenly think that this nice feeling (love) can only be experienced by doing the "right" thing, stopping doing the "wrong" thing or by getting others to stop doing the "wrong" thing and doing the "right" thing.
But "doing" was given to us at the same time as the nice feeling was (at our creation) as a means of extending this nice feeling, not as a way of making it.
We did not create it.
It was created with us, for us, in us, as us at the moment of our creation with the means of experiencing it (mind, thought, and consciousness) as well as the means of extending it (doing).
When we look to "doing" and "not doing" to try to make the nice feeling happen, we will fail, but only all the time, because this is, as the famous line says, "looking for love in all the wrong places.
" We invented, made up, imagined the bad feelings unwittingly, much as we make up our dreams.
They are no more real than are our dreams, even though they feel as real as do our dreams, but only until we awake.
Not realizing that we made up these bad feelings ourselves, we are victims of the illusion that the bad feelings came from what happened or failed to happen "out there" - from what was done to me or not done for me; or from what I did, or failed to do.
In reality, there is nothing that happens, has ever happened, or ever will happen that can rob us of our peace of mind or our ability to love, of that nice feeling.
Why, because that nice feeling (love) is what we are, is our nature, is the ground of our being.
It is only by misusing the divine gifts that life gave us - mind, thought, and consciousness that we make up misery, and hurt, and fear, and sadness, and all the bad feelings that we invented and made up, but which will never be real.
The tragic irony is that life gave us these tools as a means of fulfilling our purpose - to enjoy and extend this nice feeling (love).
I write this brief piece, not to awake, as this may take a while, but to help us (myself included) realize that we but dream, and that everything that we experience short of joy and love - that nice feeling, comes from what we make up in our minds, rather than from what was given to us in our minds at the time of our creation.
When we awake we will never suffer a bad feeling again.
We will simply receive and extend the timeless, abiding joy of being, as we were created, and as is our true nature.
In the mean time, to realize that we are the source of our bad feelings, and that the bad feelings only exist in our dream, and not in reality, changes our reaction and our relationship to our bad feelings.
Realizing that they are not coming from "out there", but from "in here" and that we are "making them up" no matter how real they feel, allows us to experience our deepest suffering with a grain of salt.
And when we can take our deepest suffering with a grain of salt, we are no longer slaves of our suffering.
Taking our suffering seriously only adds to our suffering.
Being able to take our suffering lightly by understanding we are making it up by the misuse of mind, thought, and consciousness, allows our suffering to pass, easily, effortlessly, and even instantly when our understanding is deep enough.
May you be touched by something in this writing, no matter how small, so that you suffer less, and even see the real possibility of the end of suffering.
May you see the potential to enjoy peace of mind, and the ability to love - that nice feeling, no matter what is happening, or not happening, no matter what is being done to you, or not being done for you, no matter what you are doing, or failing to do, no matter what happened to you or ever will happen.
May you at least catch a fleeting glimpse that you need do nothing to find this nice feeling, that this nice feeling is who and what you are from the beginning, and always will be.
And may your "doing" be an extension of that nice feeling that was given to you from the beginning, which is you, rather than an innocent, misguided attempt to find that nice feeling through "doing", which will always fail.
We are blessed!
